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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26870683">And if We're Going Down in Flames (Take a Bow)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustedknuckles/pseuds/stardustedknuckles'>stardustedknuckles</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Critical Role (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Empire Siblings - Freeform, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 19:14:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,517</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26870683</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustedknuckles/pseuds/stardustedknuckles</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Caleb thought he could wait everyone out and retreat to his room after dinner. He vastly underestimated how seriously one Beauregard Lionett took her job as family.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Beauregard Lionett &amp; Caleb Widogast</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>211</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>And if We're Going Down in Flames (Take a Bow)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Me: just gonna fill the prompt today, don't wanna burn out and I've been doing just so much fic recently.</p><p>Also me: meds wore off, what do I do between now and when I can actually sleep?</p><p>👀</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>"Alright motherfucker, let's see it."</p><p>Caleb looked up from the book he had not actually been reading to blink owlishly at Beau, who had appeared from nowhere to stand over him with her arms crossed. "Pardon me?"</p><p>"Your actual room," Beau said. "The one you don't share with Veth."</p><p></p><div>
  <p>"I am afraid I don't know what you mean."</p>
  <p>The Beau from just a few weeks ago would have probably hit him, but the look on her face was something closer to hurt than anger as she glared at him. "I can't make you show me," she said, "but I can keep you away from it."</p>
  <p>Caleb smiled wanly. "It is my tower," he pointed out. "I could create a door anywhere that could allow me to pass into it."</p>
  <p>A snort. "Now you're just being pedantic."</p>
  <p>He shrugged. "If I want to go into my room, you cannot stop me."</p>
  <p>Beau's jaw clenched, and he knew he'd hit a mark. She hated being reminded she couldn't force something to happen. But she inhaled, then sighed, and simply said "yeah." Her fists opened and closed, opened again. "I guess you're right. So how about this:" she lowered her chin and looked him in the eye. "I'm offering you the explicit chance to pick a better option. No claiming you didn't think about it, that it just happened the way it always has. You have a choice."</p>
  <p>Her directness startled him somewhat, and as he looked her over carefully he was distantly disturbed to discover that somewhere between their talk after the witch's hut and his dinner tonight with Trent, Beauregard had turned a corner. There were still traces of the half-feral loner he had come to predict, but this woman who had gone out of her way to confront him, knowing she was calling him out for the same mistakes she had made, was in many ways unfamiliar.</p>
  <p>She took his silence as an excuse to keep going. "I know what it feels like after something like this," she said. "I know what it is to be in front of the person who has the greatest power to make you feel small, and I know what it's like to try and deal with that when it's over - after everyone saw you cracked open like that."</p>
  <p>Caleb's eyes narrowed and he looked away, fists clenching. "And are you so certain you are the right person to recommend alternative coping mechanisms to me?" He knew he was going below the belt here, but right now he couldn't stand being on the end of any more of her perceptive stare. "I am simply going up the stairs. I will not leave."</p>
  <p>Beau's voice remained even, which was how he knew he'd cut her. She stepped around to lean over him, gripping the arms of his chair and making very sure not to touch his arms resting there. He did not flinch, looking up to stare her down defiantly. If she had been wounded, she hid it completely from him. "I'm not recommending coping mechanisms dude, but I <em>am</em> the fucking best choice of people to call you out on your shit."</p>
  <p>Her voice was gentler than he expected, but no less urgent. He couldn't fully understand where he had miscalculated - why she was still here after he had deliberately pressed that very specific button. But he didn't have it in him to push back like that again, so he just stared, unmoving.</p>
  <p>"Come on, Caleb." Some of the light from the fireplace caught her sardonic smile, deepened its edges. "You think I don't know what hurting yourself looks like?"</p>
  <p>His heart clenched, and he set his jaw to glare harder. "Let me up, Beauregard." Above him, a dark room beckoned.</p>
  <p>For a moment he thought she might refuse, but before he could decide how to react she had moved just out of his way. Her open hands became crossed arms. This, he thought, was familiar territory. Caleb stood stiffly, marched two steps away on the plush carpet.</p>
  <p>"You helped me, you know, after Kamordah."</p>
  <p>He paused. He had to. She had invoked the memory of her own vulnerability, and now she was offering it to him even after he had gone on the offensive. He could not brush that off, and she was counting on it.</p>
  <p>More to the point, he didn't want to. He had helped her, and he had meant it.</p>
  <p>He sighed and spoke to the hallway. "Obviously," he murmured. "You are my friend. My sister."</p>
  <p>She breathed in. "Yeah," she said. "And I don't take that lightly. That's why I'm here, man."</p>
  <p>Silence stretched for a few seconds, and then he scrubbed a hand through his hair, frowning hard at the wall. It was getting harder to think of going upstairs.</p>
  <p>"I didn't get why then," Beau continued, quieter. "But now I'm on this side of it, and I get it. And I'm asking. Let me help."</p>
  <p>Caleb's fists clenched, released. He stood up straighter and turned towards her over his shoulder. "What would you have me do?"</p>
  <p>"Sleep in the room you made for you and Veth," Beau said immediately. "I'll take the other bed, and you can sit over there and think whatever dark bullshit you want."</p>
  <p>Now he did face her. "I thought that was what you are trying to prevent."</p>
  <p>Her smirk was without heat. "I know better than to think I could stop you from doing what you want," she said. "You're too much like me. I'm just asking you to do it somewhere that isn't set up to be your personal hell. And let me be there."</p>
  <p>His voice became stone. "In case I lose my mind again?"</p>
  <p>"No, dumbass. In case you need a punch in the face to snap out of losing your mind again." She considered. "Or a glass of water. I could probably manage that too."</p>
  <p>His lips quirked of their own volition, and they both knew she'd won. His heart sank a little at the thought, but it didn't go as far as he expected. Beau, for her part, looked pleased as hell. "Fine," he said tightly. "But I will hold you to both of those."</p>
  <p>Beau stepped close and threw an arm around his shoulders. For once, he didn't pull away. "Caleb," she said sincerely. "I would be delighted." He huffed a laugh at that, and she scrubbed his hair and pushed at his head. "Let's go ride the magical flying tube of mindfuckery," she said.</p>
  <p>Caleb shrugged. "Or we could just go through that," he said, pointing at a dark wood door that had not been there a moment ago.</p>
  <p>Beau wasn't quite fast enough to hide her impressed expression completely. "Is that a non-negotiable thing, or."</p>
  <p>"For tonight, yes."</p>
  <p>Beau shrugged. "All through the magic fucking door, then. No fun for you tonight, loud and clear."</p>
  <p>"What is not fun about a magic door?"</p>
  <p>"The fact that you made it instead of <em>flying</em>."</p>
  <p>Okay, maybe she had a point.</p>
  <p>Beau made a grand "after you" gesture, and he rolled his eyes and stepped through. It occurred to him briefly to seal it behind him, but she was on his heels and he found that was alright too. If he really wanted her gone, she would just…go.</p>
  <p>But she was here, and in a magic tower linked to his thoughts, he figured that was probably a sign that there was still some part of his mind looking out for him, even after all this time.</p>
  <p>He watched Beau wiggle down onto Veth's small bed and make a face at its size before huffing and pulling the blankets up. He crossed over to his bed and sat watching her look back at him for a long moment.</p>
  <p>"Go ahead," she said. "Start muttering or whatever."</p>
  <p>"Fuck off," he said tiredly, but he was smiling.</p>
  <p>He took off his boots and coat, then pulled the sheets back and crawled under them to stare at the ceiling. He took a deep breath, and then another, and after seventeen of those had passed, he found that the urge to ruminate had gone from a roar to a whisper. He also found that he was almost asleep.</p>
  <p>He considered fighting it. Getting in just a little dig. It wasn't all bad, after all. In some ways it calmed him. Left him feeling clean, or at least dirty in a familiar way. He ran his fingers over the scars on his arms, felt the pull to press in rising up.</p>
  <p>As his fingernails rocked forward to touch his skin, Beau let out a gentle snore from across the room. It was such a small thing, but just like that he remembered: in spite of everything, the absolutely insufferable, brilliant woman twenty feet away - someone he called family, after everything - calmed him too.</p>
  <p>He rested his hands by his sides and closed his eyes, listening across the dark. For seven breaths, he focused on matching his breathing with Beau's.</p>
  <p>When sleep knocked again on the eighth, Caleb let it in.</p>
</div>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Title from "Bad Decisions" by Bastille</p></blockquote></div></div>
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